Yesterday unfolded like a psychological storm I didn’t see coming.
It started on a dating app, with what—on the surface—looked like a lot of enthusiasm. The messaging became intense very quickly, and before I knew it, I was receiving hundreds of texts across the day. No pacing. No breath. No space.
And even though a part of me was curious, another part of me was already tightening.
I wasn’t speaking to her.
I was speaking to her anxiety.
And my nervous system knew it long before my mind caught up.
What threw me off was that she seemed to be replying with ChatGPT responses. Not in the “let me refine my message” kind of way—but in the “I don’t know how to speak for myself, let me outsource my personality” way.
It felt hollow.
Disconnected.
Uneasy.
It made me check myself too—because I had been using AI early on to refine my own words. But the difference is stark:
One is communication support.
The other is identity outsourcing.
And that difference became painfully obvious in person.
Walking into the restaurant, something in me hesitated. There were two tables next to each other. She sat down on one side. I didn’t sit opposite her straight away.
Not because I was unsure…
but because my body was unsure.
A waiter walked past, someone I vaguely recognised. For a moment, our eyes met.
And there was something like: “You alright, mate?”
Even if I imagined it, the feeling was real.
Her energy hit the room like static.
Fast.
Chaotic.
Uncontained.
Everyone felt it.
Including me.
I moved across from her eventually, but slowly. Deliberately. My body was saying:
Don’t commit yet. Just observe.
And what I observed was a lot.
She told me about her father—volatile, intense, proud of chaos.
And she proudly said she was like him.
Her mother sounded exhausted, drained, pulled into a life that wore her out.
A woman who eventually left and now avoids relationships entirely.
And in that moment, something in me clicked.
This girl wasn’t “dangerous.”
She was unhealed.
This was a family system I’ve met before—
different characters, same emotional architecture.
And I felt something I didn’t expect:
Empathy.
Not attraction.
Not curiosity.
Not potential.
Just a kind of sad clarity:
“This is chaos.
And I don’t belong here.”
Then came the lamb incident.
The waiter asked if the food was okay.
She shot back, bluntly:
“The lamb was cold.”
No warmth.
No nuance.
No social awareness.
They brought fresh lamb.
And neither of us wanted it.
When she told me to give it to my dog—
the judgment, the tone, the complete lack of attunement
was just…
a red flag wrapped in a red flag.
It wasn’t about the lamb.
It was the pattern.
I didn’t make a scene.
I didn’t slip into old patterns.
I didn’t abandon myself.
I simply said I was tired and needed to head home.
Calm.
Polite.
Boundaried.
Old me would’ve stayed out of obligation.
New me listened to his body.
And when I told her the next morning that I didn’t feel a romantic connection, she handled it well, to be fair.
There was no explosion.
No guilt-tripping.
No drama.
Just closure.
This week has been intense.
I learned:
Most of all, I learned:
I choose calm now.
I choose safety now.
I choose myself now.
And I’m proud of that.
If she hadn’t been using AI, I probably never would have matched her energy.
And if I hadn’t used AI, I wouldn’t have been able to communicate clearly enough early on to realise the mismatch.
Ironically, the thing that connected us
is the same thing that revealed she wasn’t real with herself.
This wasn’t a failure.
This wasn’t bad luck.
This wasn’t a mistake.
This was a boundary graduation test.
And I passed.